It might have something to do with the pre-war color of Germany being white and not silver. I'm still not sure if the story of the paint being stripped off the Mercedes is actually true or just an urban legand.

in the latest Porsche Christophorus is the story told. Porsche says the mechanics were arriving with the car in Sicili the car was bare aluminium silver and looked not very nice. Maglioli said he will not race the car, as it looked not very professional. so the mechanics spread out and what they found was white color, so they painted it white.

What I found interesting about the 1956 Targa Florio was that Porsche had been assured by the Italian Sporting Commisssion that the race would be over 8 laps and as Maglioli was confident he could manage that distance on his own Porsche allowed Hans Herrmann to drive for Ferrari.

However Florio was adamant that the race was to be over 10 laps (a gruelling 447 miles) and nobody was dictating how long his race was to be! Therefore Maglioli had a bit more on his plate than he expected but coped admirably and won. Von Hanstein, the Porsche team manager, stood by in case Maglioli wilted but, thankfully, was not needed.

Originally posted by dretceterini It might have something to do with the pre-war color of Germany being white and not silver. I'm still not sure if the story of the paint being stripped off the Mercedes is actually true or just an urban legand.

I don't think the German racing colours ever actually changed from white to silver. MB and AU just did it.

My continuing research on this story has come up with a Jenkinson version, which says the organizers, not Maglioli, insisted the car be painted, rather than be run in dented aluminum. Supposedly, according to Jenks, Hanstein painted it himself, with a brush.

Originally posted by FLB What colour were most of the BMW-egined F2 specials that raced in the early-1950s? Would Germans privateers have run their own paint schemes or the 'official' national colours?

I suspect it was a bit like Britain in the 1950's when many drivers painted their racing or sports-racing car green 'just in case', whether they really intended racing internationally or not.

Originally posted by FLB What colour were most of the BMW-egined F2 specials that raced in the early-1950s? Would Germans privateers have run their own paint schemes or the 'official' national colours?

"Colour scheme" is perhaps not a fitting expression. As many of them wanted to connect to pre war Grand Prix tradition most of them were ususally plain "silver" (also because it was perhaps cheaper not to paint...), but there were also a few supporters of the official (plain) white colour (Helfrich, Karch, Adolf Lang...).

In the sports car classes it was very much the same view, but as sometimes the sports car classes were run together they had to paint a coloured stripe (1950) or circle (1951) on the car for better distinction for the spectators.

Before 1950 races were only national, so as it did not matter some drivers tried to bring some colour into the fields (for example Glöckler´s Veritas yellow, Holbein´s HH 47 in blue and the HH 48 in red). In 1948 Kling´s Veritas appeared in blue when it was disguised as a French entry at Reims and Hans Stuck also used some colour combination (probably Austrian blue/silver?) for his foreign starts in 1949.

Concerning the factory Porsches the Hanstein/Linge car was already white at Sebring in 1955. I don´t think it was a question of weight, as the difference may have been only a few gramms.